Naviair’s designation includes drone traffic in Danish airspace.
The need to focus on this area continues to increase in step with the huge growth in the number of commercial drones, both in Denmark and worldwide. In Denmark alone, there were more than 20,000 registered drones at the start of 2021, and approximately 30,000 registered drone users. The number is expected to be many times greater by 2025, as the annual increase in the numbers of both drones and drone users has been around 40 per cent in recent years. Drone services requiring ever more complex operations are increasingly in demand from the healthcare sector, business, agriculture and the authorities. There is therefore a need to quickly establish a traffic management platform that will enable complex operations, flying drones beyond the drone operator’s visual line of sight, and safe, efficient drone traffic integrated with conventional air traffic.
In 2019, Naviair therefore set up a Drone Department which, in close partnership with the other players in the industry, is responsible for establishing a sophisticated Danish UTM platform (Unmanned aircraft system Traffic Management). In 2020, on the initiative of Naviair among others, a drone test collaboration called U-space Fyn was set up in connection with the first drone testing areas around H.C. Andersen Airport. The U-space Fyn cooperation comprises players from all areas within the drone industry – including University of Southern Denmark, Dronetestcenter Fyn, the Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority, and industry representatives.
The first test version of the UTM platform was inaugurated by the Danish Minister for Transport in October 2020 in U-space Fyn. The platform went into operation on 30 December 2020 and now has around 700 visitors a day. In July 2021, it became possible to plan drone operations on the platform, which was the first step towards the digitisation of the present manual approval flow via the Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority. In 2022, in certain areas the platform will be able to provide technical support for flying drones beyond the operator’s line of sight. However, a major extension of this system is subject, among other things, to the support of the telecommunications companies in order to establish data connection between the flying drones and the UTM platform. Naviair is therefore an important player in the 5G project GENIUS, which is supported by Innovation Fund Denmark and aims to design a 5G network to support drones in Denmark. Generally speaking, the UTM platform will be extended over the coming many years, so that it will be capable of handling increasingly complex drone operations in close collaboration with the other air traffic in the lower airspace.
The introductory phase of the UTM platform up to and including 2022 is financed by a DKK 25 million grant from the Danish state.
Naviair's drone-unit, Naviair UTM, is to be found on both LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter:
> Linkedin
> Facebook
> Twitter